Are filent. Revelry, and dance, and fhow
Suffer a fyncope and folemn pause;

While God performs upon the trembling ftage
Of his own works his dreadful part alone.
How does the earth receive him?-With what figns
Of gratulation and delight, her king?
Pours the not all her choicest fruits abroad,
Her sweetest flow'rs, her aromatic gums,
Disclosing paradife where'er he treads?

She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb,
Conceiving thunders, through a thoufand deeps
And fiery caverns roars beneath his foot.

The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, For he has touch'd them. From th' extremeft point Of elevation down into th' abyss

His wrath is bufy, and his frown is felt.

The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rife,
The rivers die into offenfive pools,

And, charg'd with putrid verdure, breathe a grof
And mortal nuifance into all the air.
What folid was, by transformation ftrange,
Grows fluid; and the fixt and rooted earth,
Tormented into billows, heaves and fwells,
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl

Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immenfe
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs
And agonies of human and of brute
Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry fide,

And fugitive in vain. The fylvan scene
Migrates uplifted; and, with all its foil
Alighting in far diftant fields, finds out
A new poffeffor, and furvives the change.
Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought
To an enormous and o'erbearing height,
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Refiftlefs. Never such a sudden flood,

Upridg'd fo high, and fent on fuch a charge,

Poffefs'd an inland fcene. Where now the throng
That prefs'd the beach, and, hafty to depart,
Look'd to the fea for safety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep-
A prince with half his people! Ancient tow'rs,
And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes
Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume
Life in the unproductive shades of death,
Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth,
And, happy in their unforeseen release

From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy

The terrors of the day that sets them free.

Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast, Freedom! whom they that lose thee so regret, That e'en a judgment, making way for thee, Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy fake.

Such evil fin hath wrought; and such a flame Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth, And, in the furious inqueft that it makes On God's behalf, lays wafte his fairest works. The very elements, though each be meant The minister of man, to serve his wants, Confpire against him. With his breath he draws A plague into his blood; and cannot use Life's neceffary means, but he must die.

Storms rife t' o'erwhelm him: or, if ftormy winds

Rife not, the waters of the deep shall rise,
And, needing none affiftance of the storm,
Shall roll themselves afhore, and reach him there.
The earth shall shake him out of all his holds,
Or make his house his grave: nor fo content,
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,

And drown him in her dry and dufty gulphs.
What then!-were they the wicked above all,
And we the righteous, whofe fast anchor'd isle
Mov'd not, while their's was rock'd, like a light fkiff,
The sport of ev'ry wave? No: none are clear,
And none than we more guilty. But, where all
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the fhafts
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark:
May punish, if he please, the less, to warn
The more malignant. If he fpar'd not them,
Tremble and be amaz'd at thine escape,
Far guiltier England, left he spare not thee!

Happy the man who fees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Refolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wife of the Supreme.

Did not his eye rule all things, and intend

The leaft of our concerns (fince from the leaft
The greateft oft originate); could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;

Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen

Contingence might alarm him, and difturb
The fmooth and equal course of his affairs.
This truth philofophy, though eagle-ey'd
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And, having found his inftrument, forgets,
Or difregards, or, more prefumptuous ftill,
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims
His hot difpleasure againft foolish men,

That live an atheift life: involves the heav'n
In tempefts; quits his grafp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,

And putrify the breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his fhrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines,
And defolates a nation at a blast.

Forth steps the fpruce philofopher, and tells
Of homogenial and difcordant fprings
And principles; of caufes, how they work
By neceffary laws their fure effects;
Of action and re-action. He has found
The fource of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.